


The Hospitality of Hurakã

by azurelunatic



Category: Hellspark - Janet Kagan
Genre: Christopher Columbus is a genocidal maniac, Gen, Stealth Crossover, Yuletide Chat Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 11:31:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8889154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azurelunatic/pseuds/azurelunatic
Summary: Tocohl Susumo is entering her career as a byworld judge, under supervision of her father, Tocohl Sisumo. In this, her first official assignment, she has to figure out not only who committed the crime, but what crime is about to be committed, with the fate of a planet in the balance…





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JanLevine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JanLevine/gifts).



The skies of Hurakã were mostly peaceful as Margaret Lord Lynn established a standard orbit that centered over the main inhabited chain of islands. At first glance, this sounded like a situation for a Hellspark, who were trained as translators and diplomats, but someone had additionally requested the presence of a byworld judge.

As a Hellspark, Tocohl Susumo was used to the often conflicting demands brought by the clash of religions where cultures met, and clashes seemed inevitable from the information packet that had been forwarded to her, along with the summons to her first official mission as an apprentice byworld judge.

Savonaars believed in a quadrene pantheon, one for each season of their short year. This dy Genoa fellow had appeared on Hurakã claiming to be on a mission from the Father of Winter to convert the Hurakãn people to his particular religious sect, and make a trade deal: minerals for advanced technological equipment. The god was an unusually unforgiving one, and particularly unsuited to Hurakã's tropical climate in its demands for toe-to-neck covering. Tocohl figured he was in for an uphill fight: the Hurakãns eschewed most modern technology, and revered the spirits of nature in their tropical island paradise.

Tocohl examined the pattern of her 2nd skin, which currently reflected the lights of the stars but covered little else. "Maggy, can you give me something that won't offend a stick-in-the-mud Savonaar but won't look out of place in the temperature of Hurakã at this season?"

The voice of Maggy, Tocohl's sentient computer, appeared to come from a bulkhead speaker. "Can do, boss," she said, with an ironic inflection borrowed from the voiceprint of Tocohl's own father, Tocohl Sisumo. Tocohl Sisumo had been in frequent correspondence with Tocohl Susumo (and thereby Maggy), but there was a difference in receiving a twice-monthly vid message and having the man himself aboard. Maggy had taken a great liking to him, and Tocohl fondly resigned herself to many months of hearing his words and intonations in Maggy's cheery treble.

The local fashions tended toward the minimal, most featuring some form of loincloth, and garlands of bright decorative flowers and other ornaments. But if anyone could reconcile the difference, it was possibly Maggy, who had lately taken an interest in fashion, perhaps as a result of her correspondence with their old friend Edge-of-Dark.

Tocohl watched as her 2nd skin shifted over her body, configuring itself into a pattern that closely resembled a tight fitting patterned leggings in a color just off enough from her tan skin to be noticed as clothing, and a long sleeved upper garment in a subtly different pattern. The look was completed with a covering around her waist that looked enough like the local loincloth to attract little notice, and a series of garlands to cover her chest under her captain's baldrick. One was in a flame orange that matched her hair. Another was a progression of blue flowers going from bud to full bloom and back again, which might say nothing to dy Genoa and his group of Savonaar crew, but that proclaimed her an apprentice in her profession to the eyes of the Taíno. A third garland in green vines proclaimed her an officer of the peace, in a way that did not claim a particular Hurakãn rank, but suggested authority. A five-strand braided circlet of green and yellow-gold ribbons around her neck similarly proclaimed her an instrument of the Mother's Peace, a symbol that the Savonaar should respond to.

The summons had been odd, but everything about Tocohl's new career as a byworld judge had been odd so far, and she saw no reason this should change. She fingered the pin of High Change from the last Festival of Veschke, the pin that would symbolize her intent for the year. And change there had been: she had interrupted a mugging, and saved a planet from depredation by wasters, while accidentally impersonating one of the byworld judges who made peace between the spacefaring worlds.

For her sins, the impersonation had become the genuine article, and now she served under supervision of her father, Byworld Judge Tocohl Sisumo, to confirm her skill. "Maggy, replay the summons?"

There was no video, just a furtive audio murmur. "...need a byworld judge. Anyone who hears this, Hurakã. We need a byworld judge, or a grave injustice will be done. In the Name of the Five, send a byworld judge to Hurakã. We need a byworld judge on Hurakã. Someone…"

The audio was shot through with distortion. "I cleaned it up the best I could," Maggy said with a note of apology. "I don't know what they used to send it. Whatever it was, it couldn't have been in good repair."

"We're here on the basis that we've been summoned," Tocohl Sisumo said, his voice a low and comforting rumble. "But we have a sevenday to uncover any evidence without an accuser to step forward."

"Do they usually?" Tocohl asked.

"Usually," her father said.

"I have a summary of cases that were successfully concluded without a specific accuser," Maggy chimed in. "It's short."

"So we hope someone comes forward," Tocohl concluded.

 

After the adventure of last time, there was no keeping Maggy from sending one of her spider-like remote units down with the little ship. She fussed a bit to make sure Tocohl packed survival gear and emergency provisions that Tocohl felt would be entirely unnecessary. This was an established settlement, not a survey encampment. There was weight allowance to spare, so Tocohl included them to placate Maggy, who ultimately sent them off with good cheer.

The little craft came to a landing in a cove on the big island. Tocohl had a preference to land on solid ground, but there was no suitable landing spot on the island proper. Every square meter was either jungle, the pavilions of the settlement, or in active agricultural use. One of the smaller islands was mostly desert, but too far from the settlement to make a useful landing spot. Tocohl (and Maggy) piloted the craft to a gentle coasting speed in the water, and pulled it up onto the beach over the high tide line.

Maggy had radioed ahead to announce their arrival, and had received instructions to go to the central clearing of the main settlement, which was where the elders were in conversation with the Savonaar traders already.

There was only a small radio beacon marking the main settlement of the Hurakãn people, and another nearby locus of radio chatter that seemed to indicate three ships, presumably belonging to the Savonaar traders.

"They're old," Maggy said, through the remote. "I have no idea how they made it this far. They barely have computers worth speaking of. Although, I wonder..." Her words took on a tone of speculative mischief that Tocohl had come to recognize and dread, just a little.

"Don't meddle, Maggy, we don't need extra trouble with them," Tocohl scolded.

The main settlement was near the highest point of the island, in an area that Maggy approved of. It was sheltered from the worst of the high winds that could scour land so close to the surface of the sea. Maggy's spider-like remote was perched on the top of Sisumo's shoulders, swiveling the sensors around to take in the lush forest and the calls of the brightly colored avians.

It was a pleasant walk. Tocohl listened to Maggy's chatter as she researched each new plant and creature, and excitedly shared what she'd learned. Most of the plants could be safely ignored, but there was a particular parasitic vine, called _touch-me-twice_ , that would sting unpleasantly on the first contact, and kill swiftly on subsequent touches.

"It's an allergic reaction," Maggy explained. "Its hairs are coated in sap, and they're so thin they slip into your skin and inject you. Once your body develops antibodies to detect it as an intruder..." She trailed off.

Tocohl shuddered, and resolved to avoid that plant, even with her protective 2nd skin.

The settlement was composed of a cluster of round pavilion dwelling-tents, most with their sides rolled up for the day, and a few large square pavilions in which communal business took place. Maggy refreshed Tocohl's memory with a few comments.

The original Hurakãn settlers had chosen a simple life in harmony with nature. The radio tower on the peak of the island was made of a flexible alloy that resisted the damage of the salt spray, and brought down weather information from the satellite beacons dotted through the skies. The information was combined with information from the terrestrial beacons that bobbed up and down with the waves or sent back wind speed and other observations.

Maggy murmured the forecast for the week ahead into Tocohl's earpiece, projecting little animated maps of the major weather systems onto her goggles. "I like what they've done with this," she said, when Tocohl complimented her on the visualization. "This is all theirs."

The framework of the structures were largely a flexible native wood, with some poles showing storm damage and some more freshly cut. The tops were thatched on top with native vegetation, but the sides (and, Maggy said, the undersides of the roof) were made of the same material that composed Tocohl's 2nd skin. It snapped into place around the wooden poles to form a weathertight seal when the storms that gave Hurakã its name howled through. Tocohl could see a colorful animation playing inside one darkened structure on the screen of one lowered wall, and heard the chorus of a small group of children singing along with a learning song.

As was the custom on Hurakã, the youngest member of the group with the elders in the pavilion of governance and family approached the byworld judges. It was a bronze-skinned girl of no more than nine standard years, but already draped with a (slightly tattered) garland of leadership in the bud-and-bloom apprentice blossom scheme that Tocohl wore.

Maggy swiveled her remote to look at Sisumo.

"Go on, then," Sisumo said softly, and crooked his arm so Maggy could easily hop the remote down to greet the girl with the ritual phrases and gestures. Her call-name was Tínima, and she was sister's daughter to an elder.

There was a flurry in the pavilion, and a second child came out, this one a boy of about eleven. He greeted Tocohl with the solemnity that only a child conscious of an important role could muster. He gave his call-name as Ornofay.

"Who is the child?" Ornofay asked, after the formal words were concluded. He indicated Maggy. The inflection on the "who" indicated "what" as well, so Tocohl would have to explain her nature as well as give her sun-name and her call-name.

There was, infuriatingly, no Hurakãi word that would do for a sentient computer, perhaps because no such word had been needed before. Maggy was the first of her kind. All the existing mechanical words had a patina of artifice that would do Maggy's clever nature no favors. Tocohl would have to improvise.

"She is my spirit-daughter," Tocohl said, in perfect Hurakãi. "She is the lightning and wind in a box, and much-beloved. She is named Margaret Lord Lynn, called Maggy."

The boy grinned, and called in to the pavilion. The settlement chieftain, a stately man with a round belly, emerged, and exchanged greetings with Sisumo, as the elders of each party. He was called Güaraca.

"Who is that?" came a voice, speaking in Savonaar, from the depths of the pavilion. A man in extremely unsuited garb of trousers and a high-necked shirt that covered him down to the elbows in black cloth came forth squinting into the brilliant tropical sun. The visible parts of his skin had already turned pink from sun exposure, and his nose was red and peeling.

"Cristoforo dy Genoa," Maggy said through Tocohl's implant, flashing her brief video of the man, culled from a Savonaar news broadcast to judge by the small ownership crest in a lower corner. The man in the video was winter-pale, but still sweating with exertion or emotion as he gesticulated to the camera. 

On any other day, Sisumo might have greeted this man. Savonaar etiquette demanded that the ranking member of each group be the first to exchange introductions. Since this was Tocohl Susumo's mission, it fell to her to meet dy Genoa from a position of strength.

"Tocohl Susumo, Byworld Judge, captain of the vessel Margaret Lord Lynn, flame-pledged of Veschke, daughter of Hellspark," Tocohl said. This summarized and culturally translated list of her credentials and affiliations should put her on an equal or greater status with dy Genoa, and dispose him to look upon her without the contempt he showed for the Hurakãns. It was obvious in just these few seconds from his stiff kinesics, and the rapid easing he had shown at her presence.

"Cristoforo dy Genoa, Voice of the Father, commander of the Explorational and Trading Fleet, captain of the vessel Blessed Tovia, in service to Roya Fernando dy Savona," he said in return, with the bare minimum respectful nod to Tocohl. Clearly not a man who wished to acknowledge any authority, much less an authority that could claim status over him.

"Voice of the Father?" Maggy asked. "That's new." She scrolled information up Tocohl's field of view.

Tocohl concealed a wince. The promotion of dy Genoa's religious affiliation to the front of his titles, and the title "Voice" instead of the previous "devoted", said that he had undergone some significant inflation of faith … or self-importance ... since his last public appearance.

Other members of dy Genoa's expedition emerged, from the governance pavilion and from around the settlement.

"What brings you to Hurakã?" Tocohl asked, as if idly.

dy Genoa brightened at this. "Trade!" he said crisply. "Platinum, mostly. Would you believe that the simple folks who settled this planet had no idea of the wealth of platinum that they possess?"

"And what do you bring in return?" Tocohl asked.

"Their medicine is in a sorry state," dy Genoa said, in a low and confessional tone. "Look at this place. Just look!"

Tocohl looked around. Many of the pavilions stood on flat platforms of artificial stone, ringed with decorative rocks and shells. The square pavilion marked with gold and platinum tracings as being reserved for healing and worship was on an especially high platform, with an elaborate storm-drainage system to keep the platform dry even in heavy weather. Partitions of 2nd skin within it enclosed some delicate medical equipment, safely away from the blowing salty sand. Tocohl, not a healer herself, nonetheless observed it to be on the same level as the better field hospitals she had seen in her travels, if lacking in some of the equipment for long-term care of seriously wounded or elderly. "What lacks do you intend to remedy?" she asked, neutrally.

dy Genoa started blustering on about the lack of proper medical training, outdated equipment, and lack of a permanent medical building. Tocohl listened with decreasing patience to his listing of each model of modern medical machinery they had in the hold of their largest cargo ship, ready to offload and install with merely the Hurakãn elders' agreement to the platinum trade. Which, he groused, was on the cusp of agreement, but somehow being delayed and delayed.

"The honored Bohique Yahíma wishes to improve her equipment and training," said another of the expedition. Tocohl had been introduced to him as Pablo, the expedition's healer. His pale hair was neatly tied back from his face with a ribbon of a blue so faded it was nearly white, and unlike many of the expedition, he wore a garland in the Hurakã style. Maggy confirmed to Tocohl's quiet inquiry that yes: he was wearing the garland of a healer, exactly in keeping with his training and status.

"What training does she desire?" Tocohl asked.

Pablo darted a furtive glance to dy Genoa before answering. "She would come to the Temple Hospital of the Mother's Mercy at Zagosur," he said. "We have renowned physicians. She will be most welcome."

"I see," Tocohl said. She subvocalized some notes to Maggy.

 

The nature of Tocohl's mission, to investigate the trade deal and make sure none of the terrible things predicted by the anonymous tipster came to pass, was met with bewilderment by the elders. "Their ways are strange and moderately offensive," Güaraca said, spreading his hands in a gesture of forgiveness, "but these Savonaar have good things to trade, and they have good intentions." He paused. "Although they are shockingly ignorant of the ways of nature."

Ornofay and Tínima were tasked with showing Tocohl around the settlement, which they did with some enthusiasm, crowding and interrupting in their eagerness to inform. Tocohl's father shadowed her, observing and occasionally commenting. Maggy, of course, kept up a running commentary through Tocohl's implant.

It was hard to keep an eye on Maggy's remote. Tocohl caught glimpses of her scurrying about, peering into this structure and that. More than once, Tocohl caught her peering into an area that she should have known was private. "Behave!" she said in an undertone.

Maggy drooped her remote in a gesture of guilt and resignation, but the mood didn't last long. Soon she spotted something else that attracted her curiosity, and she sent the remote scampering off. Tocohl laughed and turned back to the tour. Maggy would be just fine.

 

Meals on Hurakã were a communal affair, eaten out of hand off plates made of large leaves, and with plenty of dishes handed around on wooden platters and stone bowls. There were slow-roasted spiced meats, fresh greens and fruits, and a rich, thick starchy dish from a local tuber. Tocohl and Sisumo ate well, following the custom of handing especially nice tidbits to a nearby dining companion. Tocohl saw that most of the Savonaar expedition kept to themselves: only taking food for themselves, and turning away tidbits offered up by some of the nearby children.

A few of the younger Savonaars participated in the meal more in the local spirit. Pablo, the healer, was one of them, talking in quiet tones to Yahíma as he sat between her and young Ornofay, who Tocohl had learned was her brother.

As the meal finished, Ornofay and Tínima ran off, as children will. They returned, giggling, with a handful of fresh garlands each. They gave garlands signifying welcome to Tocohl and Sisumo, and then with much merriment, draped several garlands over Maggy's remote.

Tocohl couldn't help but giggle. "Maggy, ever dignified," she crowed, as Maggy freed her sensors from some interfering blossoms, but without dislodging the garland. The garlands declared Maggy to be a master seafarer (close enough), and the one with the little white sprigs interspersed with the large orange blooms of Tocohl's own garland showed her to be Tocohl's daughter. It was a touching gesture.

This important business done, the children approached each member of the expedition in turn, offering a garland, with the air of someone doing an important but distasteful duty. Tocohl could see why, after the first few expeditioners either brushed off the courtesy, or ignored the children outright. dy Genoa accepted one, with the air of a man doing a distasteful diplomatic duty. Most refused.

The children saved Healer Pablo for last, and cheered up visibly when he accepted the garlands, and gave each of them a hug.

 

The sky darkened, and the children vanished into the pavilions of their families. Sundown came with a suddenness that Tocohl never could get used to, no matter how many times she stayed at this latitude. Soon the settlement was lit sparsely by glimmer-pots hooked from the eaves of pavilions, which shed their pools of warm light on the ground, and communal fires here and there. A flicker of 2nd skin screen-light came from inside some dwelling pavilions. Tocohl increased the heat inside her own 2nd skin. Without the sun, the air had become cooler, and the difference was a surprise.

Now it was just the adults around the fire, and a bowl of the local liquor was passed from hand to hand. Apparently this ritual was not one that dy Genoa or his men scorned. Tocohl took a mouthful and spluttered at the strength of the brew. She kept the bowl upright, but just barely. She felt warm hands on hers, steadying the bowl.

"Hits you hard, doesn't it?" Healer Pablo grinned, as she relinquished the drink to him. "Wonderful stuff. Savona could learn a few things from them. Cookery. Agriculture. Weather forecasting." He inhaled appreciatively and took a sip. Tocohl observed that while he tilted the bowl generously, it was mostly against closed lips. He only swallowed the smallest amount before passing the bowl along to the next person.

He was hiding something, Tocohl realized. But what? She put the thought to one side, and took in the motion of people around the fire, talking and laughing and sharing the drink. Something was out of place, something beyond the clash of cultures.

She watched the ebb and flow of conversation. Maggy was nowhere to be seen. Her father was deep in conversation with Chieftan Güaraca. The Savonaar men mingled a little, laughing with some young women despite the mutual difficulty with language.

One man made to hand the bowl of liquor to Yahíma. She frowned and pushed it away. The man turned to a more likely beauty. Tocohl decided that lacking any other lead, she would talk with Yahíma.

 

Yahíma was hard to meet with alone, but Tocohl observed her slipping off into the healing pavilion and followed her, as if by accident.

"Bohique Yahíma," Tocohl hailed her.

"Byworld Judge Tocohl Susumo."

"Healer Pablo says you desire to improve your skills," Tocohl said, watching carefully.

"That is so," Yahíma said.

"And that you wish to attend the Temple Hospital of the Mother's Mercy at Zagosur on Savona," Tocohl continued.

There was a long pause. "That is so," Yahíma said. Her face was hard, betraying nothing.

"What skills are you wanting?" Tocohl asked. She would get nothing, she knew, by pressing this directly.

Yahíma lit up at this, and started talking. There were new diagnostic techniques that could be done with much less invasiveness, with only a small upgrade to her existing equipment, and it would be so much easier to learn it hands-on. She was well-equipped to handle most of the exotic injuries that the fishing crews found themselves with, but there were diseases of aging… She sighed. "Really, we need more of me," she said. "I have some helpers, but none of them have the training, and…" she trailed off.

"Surely they're good enough?" Tocohl suggested gently. "If they'll be caring for the settlement while you're on Savona?"

Yahíma curled into herself as though Tocohl had struck her. "It is time for my evening prayers," she said. "A bohique sees to all sorts of needs, physical and spiritual, and now I must be alone."

Tocohl made a hasty retreat out of the pavilion and into the night. Something was wrong, definitely. Yahíma did not want to go to Savona.

"Boss," Maggy said through her implant. "Boss, I need you here right away."

The tone was urgent. "Where are you?" Tocohl asked. She set out through the settlement at a run, with Maggy enhancing the path in front of her so it appeared as broad daylight.

"What have you found?" she subvocalized at Maggy.

"These aren't trade ships," Maggy said. "You have to see this for yourself."

Of course dy Genoa had managed to land his ships on top of a field of tubers, crushing a good number of plants under each ship, and necessitating that Tocohl choose her path carefully lest she trip and sprawl and lose precious time. Tocohl cursed the man and his arrogant ways as yet another plant slapped at her thighs.

Maggy directed her to the entrance to the largest cargo ship, and Tocohl slipped in, taking care in her haste to not be too loud. There she stopped, and looked around her in shock.

"Maggy? Where is all the medical equipment?"

The hold of the cargo ship should have been jammed with crates, each crate holding one of the different medical machines that dy Genoa had been bragging about. This was an empty hold, and not even configured to hold cargo.

Instead of securements for crates, and netting to hold them in place against sudden maneuvering, there was equipment that at first defied Tocohl's ability to comprehend. There was row upon row of long planks at about knee height, with rails between them. Circlets of heavy plastic were attached by tethers in pairs at intervals from the floor, and more were attached along the rails.

Maggy overlaid the wireframe so Tocohl could compare the original configuration. "This was a prison transport ship," she said. The benches were original equipment, but the secured bunks were gone, replaced by more benches. Any prisoners transported here would have to sleep sitting up, or slumped against each other or the rail.

"And there are no trade goods," Tocohl said grimly. "This is slave trafficking."

"You're going to have to die," dy Genoa said, conversationally. "It'll look like an accident, of course. The poor byworld judge can't hold her liquor, wandered off into the forest, tripped, and broke her neck." He held a nasty-looking beam weapon leveled at Tocohl.

Tocohl cursed herself. She should never have spoken aloud while possibly under surveillance in an enemy ship. The 2nd skin could possibly deal with the beam weapon, but she wasn't confident enough to stake her life on it. She didn't recognize the model, and she was distantly aware of Maggy muttering to herself.

"I wouldn't do that," she said calmly, walking towards dy Genoa with her hands up in an attitude of surrender. "The death of one byworld judge tends to attract more byworld judges, and what would you do then? Murder them all?"

"If need be," dy Genoa said. "These fools are sitting on top of a very nice platinum deposit that they refuse to mine properly. Gold, too. They won't agree to let me take it out of the ground efficiently. They say it would pollute the water. The ocean's huge! This planet is practically nothing but ocean! A little bit of runoff from the mine is nothing."

"I begin to see," Tocohl said. Where was Maggy? Had she gone to get help? There was no guarantee that anyone would arrive in time, so she would have to do this herself. "Where would you take them? No civilized planet takes slaves."

"Nobody cares about heathens," dy Genoa said. "They're not the Father's. They're not the Mother's. They're not the Son's, nor the Daughter's. There's no one left to claim them. That means they can be mine."

Being a Hellspark meant being conversant in every culture and every language of every spacefaring world. It did not mean being equal to arguing Savonaar Quadrene theology with a megalomaniac while trying to figure out how not to get killed. Tocohl calculated angles. If she could just get behind that bulkhead--

"BASTARD!" Healer Pablo cried, as he bashed dy Genoa in the head with a wooden club.

dy Genoa dropped the beam weapon, and crumpled to the floor groaning.

"The Bastard claims all the poor souls that don't have a father, mother, brother, or sister," Pablo yelled, abandoning the club and thrashing at dy Genoa with alternating fists. "And the Bastard take you, too, straight to his hell with the oathbreakers and murderers and blasphemers! There is no season for you! No season at all!"

A group of Hurakãns rushed in behind Pablo, and soon had the men separated. They bound dy Genoa neatly with ropes.

"What shall we do with them, Byworld Judge Tocohl Susumo?" asked Chieftain Güaraca. "This man has wronged you. He has also negotiated with us in ill faith. He has coerced Bohique Yahíma. Our culture has penalties for all of these crimes. All of his men knew they did not have the trade goods they claimed. They are all complicit."

The evening toppled onto Tocohl with a rush. She was suddenly very weary. "Nothing, tonight," she said. "Morning is time enough to talk justice."

So it was that the entire Savonaar crew was shackled to the benches in the hold of their own slave ship, and put under guard by a group of annoyed young Hurakãn men.

Tocohl spent the night in one of the women's pavilions. Sisumo spent the night in a place of honor in the same men's pavilion as the chieftain. Maggy, who did not need sleep, stayed in the bowels of the cargo ship, keeping her sensors trained on the Savonaar crew.

 

"How did you know to check the cargo ship, Maggy?" Tocohl asked the next morning. She was combing the tangles out of her long hair, before the day ahead.

Maggy made a pleased little noise through Tocohl's implant. "None of the Savonaars seemed to notice me," she said with pride. "Except Healer Pablo. Who made sure that I overheard him praying to the Bastard for forgiveness for his part in deceiving the Hurakãns, while I was exploring their ship yesterday afternoon." She paused. "I got a good audio recording of that. You may be interested in this…"

A council of the Hurakãn elders gathered with Tocohl and Sisumo in the governance pavilion after the morning meal. The imprisoned Savonaar crew were stiff and weary from their night in their own slave ship, which Tocohl thought served them right.

Cristoforo dy Genoa was judged to be guilty of attempted enslavement, attempted interstellar trafficking, as well as lesser crimes of coercion and trading in ill faith. Most of his crew was judged to have knowingly aided and participated. There was one exception.

"Healer Pablo, did you secretly call for the presence of a byworld judge?" Tocohl asked.

The healer was also the worse for wear from his overnight imprisonment, hair falling loose from the white ribbon. "I did, Judge," he said quietly.

"Why?" Tocohl asked.

He shifted nervously. "It wasn't … it wasn't right," he said finally. "They'd have hanged me as an infidel if I showed one foot out of line, but it wasn't right, what they were doing, and someone had to do something."

"So you sent an open radio message and hoped for the best?" Tocohl asked.

"He warned me," Bohique Yahíma said suddenly. "Between us, we still couldn't figure out a way to stop them. But we tried."

"I took a chance," Pablo said. "Your Mother's braid, with the five strands. The fifth ribbon is always for the Bastard. That meant you might be safe. And since Maggy's your daughter…" He trailed off. "Thank you for coming," he said, simply.

 

In the end, the three Savonaar ships were left as compensation to the Hurakãns, and the traders were returned to Savona for exile and further punishment under their laws. The council of elders did not want them to remain on Hurakã.

dy Genoa was placed under additional penalty. He was never to return to Hurakã on pain of death. Bohique Yahíma, wearing a medical-grade 2nd skin (one of the few personal 2nd skins in the settlement) brought forth a sprig of _touch-me-twice_ and pressed it to dy Genoa's neck as he sat restrained. 

dy Genoa yelped as the fine hairs delivered the sap through his skin. A pattern of angry red dots soon blossomed, and Tocohl knew that his immune system was hard at work, preparing the reaction that would kill him if he returned and touched the plant again. Bohique Yahíma spat on him before taking the sprig of _touch-me-twice_ away to be destroyed.

Healer Pablo, secret Quintarian among the Quadrene Savonaars, remained. For his complicity in the trafficking plot, he was sentenced to ten years of exile, but watching him laugh with Bohique Yahíma as they reviewed a catalog of medical equipment, Tocohl thought those ten years would pass quickly.

"How did I do?" Tocohl asked her father, back aboard the ship.

"Mercy is as much a part of justice as punishment is," her father said. "You'll do just fine."

And Maggy piloted them off into the stars.

**Author's Note:**

> Hurakã and its people are named in honor of the [Taíno](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta%C3%ADno), who suffered great losses at the hands of Spanish explorers. 
> 
> Savonaar culture owes equal amounts to [Bujold's 5 Gods universe](http://chalion.wikia.com/wiki/Chalion_Wiki) and a certain genocidal Spanish explorer.


End file.
